...to expect a charity shop (business) to take my donation when I deliver it to them?

Ana is right. So much of what we saw was rubbish....and unfortunately even if some of it could have been recycled it ment a member of staff kindly bundling it up and taking it there themselves. Obviously that did not happen often so it would go in the shop's expensive trade bins and thence into landfill.
Many charity shops run on so much good will and I was always amazed how much behind the scenes stuff was done with such good humour. The local antique shop would cast an eye over anything we thought was valuable. One lady, an ex librarian, sorted books so that nothing of value went astray, similar arrangement with jewellry and watches. Someone else picked up all the glass that did not sell and took that to recycling. Etc Etc.

Clothing that is not worth anyone wearing can be recycled as rags. The charity gets money from that.

Not everyone has a car.

But if they just want to get rid, why don't they put stuff in the bin?

Grannyknot, they do it just to get rid of it - they don't want to make the effort of taking their rubbish to the local tip/recycling centre!

The oxfam shop in the town near to me has a very small back room. I don't know how they manage.

I have had to stop my DH from sending stuff to a charity shop as its total rubbish. Trouble is he hoards thing and doesn't seem to understand that some things are unsaleable.

Hilda . Why oh why do people donate cr*ppy stuff? I don't get it.

oops too many nots....ment to say...it not a job I could do!

A lot of charity shops do have paid managers. However, its not a job I could NOT do. I worked with a young one who had a lovely approach to all the volunteers and managed to work within the charities quite stict work ethics. It was a huge juggling effort. Coping with market forces and retail style profit targets, volunteers with allsorts of backgrounds (and in many cases emotional and social issues). The general public (and all that entails). I know no one is really critisising the staff on this forum, and I can appreciate the irritation of lugging a huge bag of goodies in to be then told its not wanted. However, getting a charity shop to run reasonably smoothly is something only a few very talented and diplomatic folks can do . I can always remember the day I started sorting though a huge bag of so called 'good stuff' and finding nothing but grubby tat and saying somthing quite loudly (I have that sort of voice) to the effect, to have the sweet manager say......shhhhhhh! shes still in the shop!

Ella46 I love that sentence. #a pearl!

Hilda O M G !!!!!!!

Grannyknot Like you, I thought the manager a charity shop was a paid position, and Hilda, in any case, volunteer or not, there is no call to be fierce or discourteous to people donating goods.

HildaW - I would never criticise the volunteers. Maybe I don't understand but isn't the manager's job a paid retail job like in any other shop?

I have been having a bit of a clear out and have taken quite a bit to a local charity shop, so much so that the volunteers greet me with a big smile and ask what I have brought today! I always examine the clothes and if it is looking worn it doesn't go (goes to recycling instead).

Dirty clothing and crockery in a minor offence. I was processing some donations when I started on a small battered suitcase. Opened it to find some old clothing that did not look promising but being a good girl I carried on. After taking out a few garments I started to realise my hands were feeling a bit gritty and greasy. We are supposed to use rubber gloves but they are thin and make your hands sweat and you just get out of the habit. Anyway I started to pay a bit more attention and looked into the suitcase, moved some of the bits of clothing aside and suddenly came across a lot of grey coarse looking dust. Yup....you've guessed it....it was someones ashes! So please do not critisise charity shop VOLUNTEERS we get a rought ride.

Eloethan the manager of the shop is quite fierce and would simply have pointed the sign out to me, I don't have the energy for 'battle-axes' especially not on my happy Saturday morning round - are you still allowed to say that? . Anyway, she's a real old battle axe. LOL. I think I'll just avoid donating there in future, will put my heavy stuff on Freecycle locally.

elegran I found a dirty tissue in the pocket of a jacket I tried on in a charity shop, once. Yuk indeed.

grannyknot I would have been inclined to go in anyway and say that I regularly donate to the charity and, as I have had to lug the donations to the shop, I would be most grateful if they'd make an exception on this occasion.

elegran I find it shocking that people donate dirty clothes and broken china - and some poor soul has to sort through all that rubbish - yuk.

Ella46...no need to 'pologise. Made me

never mind Ella I get you! True. Bags I've seen that too, Oxfam in my area is one example of that, they're sort of just like any other shop that sells stuff, but one that also sells secondhand clothes.

Apologies to all pedants, that is a dreadful sentence

grannyknot Not everyone has the transport to get to the cheap shops to buy cheap stuff new.

Ah well, not to worry. Perhaps it's simply a case of charity shops being 'too' successful and not being able to keep up with turnover. One near us from which I used to buy clothes for DD when she was younger no longer takes or sells children's clothes but they have a lot of new, apparently specially made stuff (not clothing) that is not so useful. I no longer shop there.

Bags lovely idea but I work full time, plus I am on the board of a charity that has to generate income (but not via shops). So no time to volunteer sorting stuff for the charity shop, and if I'm honest, no inclination either. Maybe at another stage in my life.

I agree about the tat - I see some of it for sale on the shelves, not to mention clothing that I know from the labels come from a shop where I can probably buy as cheap brand new!

Refusals to accept things are usually about storage (or lack thereof), space on shelves (or lack thereof), and numbers of volunteers (or... you get the idea!).

I agree it's a tad annoying if one has had to carry stuff, but I don't think there's any point blaming the charity shops. Perhaps you could go in another day and offer time as well as Denby pottery. It may be what they need most.

Charity shops do get an awful lot of tat donated - cracked and chipped crockery, worn-out baking trays, half pairs of shoes, unwashed old clothes (including underwear!) ornaments that were cheap and horrible when they were new and have not improved. Some people seem to think they are just places to easily get rid of old rubbish.

But it is a shame that they refuse all donations at all! Maybe they could display a big permanent notice saying "Due to lack of space we regret that we can only accept donations on a Monday" or whatever, and post an address where stuff would be welcome on other days.

We had this issue with Oxfam in Manchester. My son was moving and had lots of stuff, including 50 or 60 academic books. They explained that some back rooms are minute, but also the number of volunteers to sort donations varied, and some donations were better suited to other shops e.g. academic books woud soon find a home from the shop near the unversity. Also, they had limited access to transport to move donations fom one shop to another.

We were asked to go to the city centre shop, where two volunteers were waiting to unload everythng at the back of their shop into a massive sorting area. They were very apologetic about us having to take the stuff there, saying some premises just don't have capacity or enough volunteers.